Last Friday marked my the final day of Fall quarter 2010. Although I was only taking one 5 credit class online (American Literature-yawn.) it felt like a full load. If it was just me as a 19 year old college student there would have been no excuses or whining. But add a 15 hour-a-week job and a very active family and now you know why I've only been on here a handful of visits.

But.........I reluctantly peeked at the online learning board for one last time before I closed up shop and I couldn't believe my eyes. The grade for my final paper: 100%!!! I about fell out of my chair. Yes, I worked very hard and stressed out and yelled and screamed at every member of my family and cried about what a mistake I made trying to fit it all in but I certainly wasn't expecting that as a result. Wow. In my entire college career this has NEVER happened to me. I've had some low to mid 90 scores here and there but 100? Like I said: never.

As much as I'd like to give myself credit I do have to say that this time around I find the instructors go a little easier on their students. I know I'm much more focused than 20 years ago but I still don't think I'm doing that caliber of work. In the late 80's most of my professors were born in the 30's and 40's and their style reflected their hard core work ethic. Not that anything is wrong with high expectations but their demands were a little unrealistic. Most of my peers agree that no matter whether you were taking a 5 credit or 3 credit class, they wanted you to treat it as if it was your only one. As I noticed this summer, today's educators are a little more reasonable and realistic. They accept the fact that you have a lot more on your plate than just their class and make amends to the syllabus to reflect that. It could also be that I went summer quarter--which is always more laid back-- and now I'm at a community college where 90% of the students are commuters and part or full-time workers.

Whatever the reason is, I'll take the "A".